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2024-11-11

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Embryo loss is integral to IVF. Alabama’s ruling equating embryos with children jeopardizes its practice (www.statnews.com)

submitted 8 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/science@lemmy.world

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An embryo is one of the earliest stages of development of a multicellular organism. But according to the Supreme Court of Alabama, it is a person, too — an unborn child, entitled to the same legal protections as any minor.

The court ruled on Feb. 16 that a fertility clinic patient who accidentally destroyed other patients’ frozen embryos could be liable in a wrongful death lawsuit, writing in its opinion that “the Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location,” and that this includes “unborn children who are located outside of a biological uterus at the time they are killed.”

This has had immediate and profound consequences on the practice of in vitro fertilization in the state, with many fertility clinics already deciding to interrupt their services for fear of legal repercussions, including the University of Alabama at Birmingham, which has paused its IVF treatments, as has Alabama Fertility Services.

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[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

They're certainly alive or there wouldn't be any point in keeping them. What they're not is people.

[–] Black616Angel@feddit.de 8 points 8 months ago

A frozen embryo is not really "alive". Anywhere outside of a specific clinic in a specific container it would thaw and be destroyed immediately.

I know, where you are coming from, but counting a frozen embryo as alive is really stretching the meaning of alive.

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Life is defined as "the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death"

None of these apply to embryos by themselves. Only when they're implanted do they gain the capacity for these things.

If you couldn't recognise the species even under a microscope, then no, it's not a person.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Human_blastocyst.jpg

That's a human blastocyst.

Frozen embryos are from the the stage before blastocysts.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embryo_cryopreservation

Cryopreservation of embryos is the process of preserving an embryo at sub-zero temperatures, generally at an embryogenesis stage corresponding to pre-implantation, that is, from fertilisation to the blastocyst stage.

I remember when as a kid in the late 90's, watching Stargate, I thought the US was cool. (Should've realised back then those were mostly Canadians in it, lol.) Now it seems like pure insanity over there.